Unilever calls for advertising industry to be more inclusive of disabled community
Unilever has launched a new campaign to help boost the number of people with disabilities working behind the camera in the advertising industry.
At present, people with disabilities only represent 8.3% of roles on-screen and 6% off-screen in the UK. Additionally, 73% of disabled content creators feel the industry is exclusionary of them.
The new ‘Believe in Talent’ campaign supports the production industry to become more inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities behind the camera.
As part of this, Unilever has launched an ‘Inclusive Production Toolkit’ in collaboration with the disability community to help make advertising production more disability-confident and inclusive of people’s needs.
The group has also introduced an ‘Inclusive Set Commitment’ to include at least one person from the disabled community as part of the crew on advertising productions over €100,000.
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The campaign forms part of Unilever's 'Act 2 Unstereotype' initiative, which aims to eliminate systemic bias and barriers that are preventing under-represented communities from having full access to opportunities in the advertising industry and society more broadly, improving equity among these groups.
Dana Cadden, Global Head of Advertising Production at Unilever, said: "We are committed to changing the way we operate on commercial productions to ensure we harness all the great talent from the disabled community.
"Whilst we still have much to learn, if more brands can make their production sets more inclusive, they will not only create more opportunities for persons with disabilities, but also benefit immensely from the creativity they will bring to our industry."
